Last night I travelled from Stavanger to Oslo to meet Sami Rintala and Dagur Eggertsson, the partners of Rintala Eggertsson Architects – and the designers responsible for the 'Ark' book tower which will be situated by the V&A National Art Library staircase, forming part of the '1:1' exhibition. We drove for a couple of hours to reach Seljord where Sami (above, left) and Dagur (above, right) are involved in a number of projects in the local area. The images shown above and directly below are both of a project they have just finished – the 'Smoke Sauna', positioned right on …

“aberrant are always keen to impress a visiting supermodel…” The Model Workshop Preparations are well underway for our ‘Design for Life’ workshop next week, during which our school-age participants will be asked to supercharge a typical residential suburb to cater for the needs of a growing population of home-workers. The big news is that the international fashion model, Erin O’Conner, will be sharing the stage with us, as she has volunteered to present the awards to the winning exhibitors. aberrant are always keen to impress a visiting supermodel and we are proud to say that no one goes away from …

Tonight I am in Stavanger, southern Norway – to visit Helen & Hard Architects. I've just spent an amazing day with the Helen & Hard team, not only getting an update on their 'Ratatosk' climbing structure for the '1:1' exhibition but, most importantly, having the opportunity to visit some of their built structures. I started the morning by spending a few hours at their studio, meeting the rest of the office, and getting a brief intro into some of their recent projects, looking at models and drawings etc. The image above shows some tests they have been carrying out for …

We've had a few enquiries recently regarding Project Linus and its absence in the exhibition. I first heard about Project Linus in 2003, when I lived on the Isle of Wight. The headline 'Blankets of Love for Sick Children' was followed by a news report detailing how volunteers had presented a pile of quilts to St Mary's Hospital children's ward and neo-natal intensive care unit. As a mother whose twin daughters were born prematurely, but needed little in terms of intensive care treatment, this act of generosity touched my heart. During the course of my research for Quilts 1700-2010 I …

Recently Ihad the pleasure of speaking at Lisson Gallery, which has an exhibition of recent work by the British sculptor Tony Cragg. The works on view are astounding from the point of view of fabrication. Like a handful of other contemporary sculptors in the UK- RachelWhiteread, Anish Kapoor and Richard Deacon spring to mind – Cragg has become a master of production values. He moves with seeming effortlessness from material to material, creating similar forms in stainless steel, resin, stone, and plywood. Here are two works from the Lisson show, one in steel and one in wood. Cragg's sculptures remind …